Introduction: Science Fiction Comes of Age: The Dune Chronicles

After the advent of Star Trek: The Original Series, and before we were treated to Star Wars and that galaxy far, far away, there was another world.

Like Star Trek, it was a social commentary, incorporating the “feast and famine” of limited resources, the clash of different peoples in different social strata, the dangers of a three-pronged government, the on-going battle between logic and emotion, messianic cults and their charismatic figures and families whose feuds spanned the reaches of time, truly defining the word “epic”.

Science fiction was just starting to catch on in our everyday world, dominated by the very real presence of nuclear war and the devastating effects resulting from a nuclear holocaust, and heavily influenced by our space race with Russia, fueled by our imaginations and love affairs with such heroes as Buck Rogers.

We were faced with a simmering political stew of Soviet communism, American capitalism, keeping nationalistic/socialistic groups at bay; civil rights were emerging; women were leaving the kitchens, burning their bras and entering the workforce in droves. The sexual revolution was upon us, clashing with deeply held religious convictions, morals and ethics while being free to fully explore for the first time in our lives due to “The Pill”.

We were involved in an unpopular war; students were letting their voices be heard in protest, folk song, dress, sit-ins, and the emergence of turning on/tuning out, flower power, Haight-Ashbury. We were reeling from the assassination of our president (November 22, 1963: Death of the President); our space program was going full throttle and popular movies centered on singing nuns, spies, westerns and comedies (Various). We had barely averted disaster with the Bay of Pigs standoff (Swift) and Nikita Kruschev was pounding his shoe on his desk at the United Nations (History.com Staff), threatening communism would be accomplished without a shot being fired-we would be brought down from within (his planned visit to Disneyland was summarily cancelled).

We were ripe for some excellent escapism, into a world beyond our wildest imaginings. We were ripe for DUNE, the spoiled royal class, the stark poverty of the Fremen, the sick psyche of the Baron, the Atreides/Harkonnen feud, the logic of the Mentats, the mysticism of the Bene Gesserit. And Spice.  We hungered for the spice.